Steven: Well, when I was in middle school, my school decided to take all the students in my grade to go to this place called Punta Mona where it's just the tip of Costa Rica. It's located northeast of Costa Rica. This place is … that I went is just mainly in the forest. I was living there for one week without electricity , without any technology, and we were using biodegradable products, for example, cactus, washing face products which you don't really find in the markets, and also we were eating nothing out of meat. We were only eating leaves. We were eating plants. We were eating vegetables that was in the ground, just walking through and we just found them. This is really wonderful. We were also kayaking which is wonderful for me. Canoping. We were growing some plants for later. And of course we were living with the bugs. It was horrible that we were getting bitten all the time, but we found, like for example, some herbal which we just applied and the insects would just disappear from thin air. You would never see them again if you use this herbal, and this just educates people how the environment is so important. You don't need drugs from the pharmaceuticals to just survive. You can use plants. You can use the trees and all these leaves which you can use.

Learn Vocabulary from the Lesson

the tip of

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It is in the tip of Costa Rica.

The tip of something is the point at the end of something. Notice the following:

Ships at sea can only see the tip of an iceberg.

We write with the tip of a pen.

biodegradable

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We were using biodegradable products.

When something is biodegradable that means it breaks down into the environment without causing harm to the eco-system.

They now use biodegradable paper bags instead of paper ones.

This soap is biodegradable.

apply

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After you applied the herbal, the insects would disappear.

When you apply something, that means you put it over something, such as skin or a surface.

He applied sunscreen to his back so he would not get a burn.

She applied skin lotion on her hands.

from thin air

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The insects would disappear from thin air.

When something disappears into thin air, it becomes invisible or nonexistent. We sometimes use the phrase to describe how something disappeared for no reason. Notice the following:

My stuff was here one minute and then it just disappeared into thin air.

After the explosion, the building vanished into thin air.

pharmaceutical

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You don't need pharmaceutical drugs.

A pharmaceutical drug is medicine or health products that are produced in order to be sold. A pharmaceutical drug is the opposite of a natural drug or medicine, such as herbal medicine. Notice the following: